3 players who could benefit from Ambati Rayudu's dip in form

#1 Vijay Shankar

Vijay Shankar - The new hero of Indian cricket

Vijay Shankar is the new hero of Indian cricket. He showed tremendous temperament with both the bat and ball in the second ODI against Australia at Nagpur. He came to the batting crease with India reeling at 75 for 3. He should thank the team management and Captain Kohli for promoting him in the batting order ahead of MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav.

Shankar justified his promotion by playing a scintillating inning of 46 off 41 balls before he was unfortunately run-out at the non-striker's end. Again he kept his nerve at a crunch moment of the match. After bowling the 10th over of the innings which went for 13 runs, Shankar was called upon to bowl the last over with only 10 runs in the bank to defend. He once again did not disappoint his teammates by removing the dangerous looking Marcus Stoinis and then uprooting Adam Zampa’s middle stump.

Not only in the Nagpur ODI, but Vijay Shankar has also proved his value to the team in white ball cricket whenever he was given a chance in the recent past. With his recent performances, he certainly deserves a place in the World Cup squad. Now the poor form of Ambati Rayadu should make his claim much easier as a specialist batsman in the team who could contribute with 4 or 5 overs.

Vijay Shankar should be the batting all-rounder in the team while Hardik Pandya should be the bowling all-rounder. There has already been enough talk about promoting Dhoni to No 4 position in batting. Now in the present scenario, by doing so, Vijay Shankar could be accommodated in the playing XI as a batsman at No 5 followed by Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya.

This should give more balance to the team both in batting and bowling. Besides, Vijay Shankar is a terrific fielder. All he has to do is to improve his bowling a bit. He would be better off bowling in the second and third powerplay overs with some protection on the boundary.

If one were to believe in destiny, Vijay Shankar should be in the World Cup squad perhaps at the cost of Ambati Rayadu.